MotorTrend editors Miguel Cortina and Kristen Lee got to Mexico City to drive the all new 2024 BYD Yuan Plus.
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MotorTranscript
00:00 Hi, this is Kristen Lee with Motor Trend.
00:02 I'm Miguel Cortina.
00:03 And we are here in beautiful Mexico City to drive some Chinese cars.
00:07 BYD is a brand from China.
00:10 They make more EVs and plug-in hybrids than any other automaker in the world.
00:15 That includes Tesla, by the way.
00:17 And they just launched in Mexico.
00:19 Alright, so we are currently riding around in the BYD RAN+.
00:25 My first impression, just as a passenger, is that the fit and finish is great.
00:31 So it is a compact crossover.
00:33 I want to say it's kind of like the size of an HR-V.
00:36 And, you know, it's kind of like, it's small on the outside but pretty spacious inside.
00:41 Yeah, that's what you want because I've noticed the trend of modern cars
00:44 where they just keep getting bigger and bigger but the inside gets smaller and smaller.
00:48 So I'm glad that this car, it feels proportionate.
00:53 We talked about what it is, let's talk about what it delivers.
00:56 480 kilometers of range, which is roughly 300 miles.
01:01 Yeah, that's great.
01:02 I've been driving it for like 10 days or so.
01:04 I've had to charge twice only.
01:06 Great city car then.
01:07 Just size, the regen, the range.
01:11 Very good city car.
01:11 Yeah.
01:12 The price is also super attractive.
01:16 Yeah, how much is this thing?
01:17 So this is 800,000 pesos, which translates to roughly 35,000 bucks.
01:23 Okay, you know, you think about how the average price of a new car now is about $50,000.
01:29 It's really not bad.
01:30 I mean, the inside has a lot of very cool shapes and textures.
01:35 And, you know, this vent here, they could have just made a vent.
01:38 But instead they did this kind of semicircle.
01:42 And we really like the way these door handles are shaped.
01:44 And my favorite feature is actually these door pockets.
01:48 I've been driving Miguel nuts, because every time there's a quiet moment in the car, it's just...
01:51 And also, the big party trick on the inside is the screen changes.
01:59 Those millennials like me, if you guys remember the TV phone that LG made with Verizon in like 2006 or something,
02:07 it also kind of had this rotating screen.
02:09 So that's what this is a total throwback to.
02:12 There are a few things that are like three things that I don't really like too much about the car.
02:16 Number one, the screen over here is too small.
02:19 It's too small and it looks kind of cheap.
02:23 Compared to the rest of the car.
02:24 Yeah, the rest of the car is very quality.
02:26 Yeah, so that's one.
02:28 Two, as all EVs have this kind of like weird sound when you're driving on there like 20 miles an hour or so,
02:35 the sound on this one is particularly awful.
02:39 It sounds like if you like left your fridge open or something.
02:42 And it's telling you like, "Hey, go close the fridge!"
02:47 That's what it sounds like.
02:49 And point number three is the sound of the turning signals and the warning flash.
02:54 Okay, so if you turn it on now...
02:55 That sounds like a video game lobby.
03:02 And it's particularly loud on this one too.
03:05 Like, I don't know, I like the ones that are kind of like muted and silent.
03:09 But I mean, those are such minor complaints though.
03:12 Everything else about the car has been so impressive.
03:16 Even the way it looks.
03:17 You know, you walk up to it, you're like, "This is actually pretty neat."
03:20 It doesn't look like everything else that's on the road.
03:23 It is stylish.
03:25 And I think it's proportioned nicely too, frankly.
03:28 For a long time, Chinese-made anything had the stigma of being like a copycat or a cheap knockoff.
03:38 And now, on this side of 2023, BYD has launched a car that doesn't do any of those things.
03:44 And so that stigma has kind of like been turned around, I think.
03:48 The EVs that grab your attention are like your Lucid Airs, your Porsche Taycans, your Model S Plaids.
03:52 You know, the ones with like neck-snapping acceleration, everything like that.
03:55 But most people don't really care about that past like the third or fourth launch.
04:00 Yeah.
04:01 Most people just want to get to work.
04:02 They want to sit in traffic comfortably, which is exactly what we're doing.
04:05 And also the fact that it is affordable, I think, is the most attractive thing of all time.
04:09 So, the way people buy cars, not enthusiasts, people, the way people buy cars is,
04:16 "Will it fit all my stuff? Is the range good? And am I able to get a good lease deal on it?"
04:21 Yeah.
04:22 And so if this car can fulfill all three of those requests, well, there's your winning formula right there.
04:26 So, BYD Yuan Plus, pretty good.
04:33 Yeah, we like it.
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